Two Winooskis Fall In Love
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Emma Lewis is the star of Every Tom, Dick & Harry. She is a thirty-two-year-old woman who is about to be roped into moving home to take over the family business when her dad and step-mom decide to retire and move out of town.
Their company, Finders, Keepers, conducts estate sales for folks who are downsizing, or moving, or for families when a loved one has passed away. John-Paul and Beth Lewis were the owners. Now Emma has taken over, renaming the business, Estate of Mind. Her business card tells all: We empty your nest.
But that’s not all Emma’s parents have arranged for her. They have a place for her to live – their house which has a paid off mortgage. And they have a family friend all lined up to move in as a boarder so that cash for property taxes, utility bills, and the like will be taken care of.
Such over-reaching on their part is mitigated – possibly – by the fact that John-Paul, Beth, and Emma get along so well, are all such nice and well-meaning people.
Emma’s new tenant is Frank Crowley who was a teaching colleague of John-Paul’s and Emma’s algebra teacher. He is a new widower. His wife, Ginger, was struck by lightning while playing golf.
Theirs was not the best of marriages since he was Ginger’s third husband, and since she was still in love with her first husband, Stefan. Oh, and let’s not forget that the whole town – except for Frank – knew Ginger was sleeping with Stefan while Frank was at work.
Frank and Ginger had a pre-nuptial agreement that in the case of her death, the house went to her adult children. If they did not want it, it went to Stefan. This explains Frank’s need for housing.
Over the course of the novel, Estate of Mind gets hired to run two big sales. First there is the residence on Quail Ridge Road that was both a B&B and a brothel. It is owned by Lois Mankopf. During the years that the brothel flourished, Lois was married to Manny Mankopf who was the chief of police and who turned a blind eye to her business. The true nature of Lois’ business was another widely known secret in town.
The second residence in need of an estate sale was Ginger’s home. Because she had been a hoarder, it was full of tons of junk. And because of a secret she took with her to her grave, it was full of a ton of other stuff too.
As a friendship grows between Emma and Frank so does a lot of collaboration as he helps in myriad ways with Estate of Mind. Another thing they have in common is they both fall in love in the novel.
Emma gets together with an old high school acquaintance, Luke Winooski. He is the current chief of police, having taken over when Manny was disgraced and moved out of town. And there is a Winooski for Frank as well, Connie, who is Luke’s mom.
Except that there were two big sales – with lots of complications involved – and two relationships in the process of blooming, I’m not sure there was exactly a plot to this story.
According to a review in the New York Times, such a comment has been made about Elinor Lipman’s work before. Lipman quotes an editor who urged her to have more action in her novels by saying, “Could someone here please pass the potatoes.”
But that editor – and I – need to take note that Elinor Lipman has a boatload of books under her belt including fifteen standalone novels that were published between 1990 and 2025. She is clearly doing something right as she gives us novels of small-town America.
Another review of the book appeared in the Washington Post. Reviewer Karin Tanabe explains Lipman’s work to us as she says Every Tom, Dick & Harry is a “master class in writing about small-town life without tropes or judgment.” She says the new novel “is all comfort and joy.”
Kinda like mashed potatoes…
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